Day 5 - December 26, 2012

Today was such an encouraging day!  It really makes me so much more confident that Dad is going to come back to us! 

At the start of the day, they removed a sheath catheter that had been placed in his leg.  This had been there ever since the day one heart catheter.  Because they took that out, they kept him heavily sedated for the morning and half of the afternoon so that the opening could clot and heal.

Later in the afternoon/evening, they reduced his sedation and we were so happy with the progress we saw.  When we would talk with him, he really seemed to turn his face towards ours and we actually saw some focus to his eyes.  We hadn't thought of it before for Aunt Judy (or maybe Aunt Deb?) mentioned that it might help to put his glasses on for him.  We really hadn't thought about that before (silly I know) and it made a difference.  We saw him start moving his eyes to track us rather than just moving his head from side to side.  At one point, Codi walked into the room and he turned his head in reaction to her walking in.  Later in the evening, as I was talking with him I would test him by walking to the end of the bed and he would track me with his eyes back and forth just a bit. 

Again, the doctor's goals are to see Dad perform a "purposeful" movement such as a thumbs up or a definitive wiggle of his toes.  Something that would not be a fluke or a movement that he would just do as a reflex.  We have tried to get him to do something of this sort, but without success....however, it has not been that long and I am encouraged with our progress at this point.  Today he was more awake and aware than yesterday so we are on the right path.

Also, Dad is still hooked up to the respirator, but his settings are very low and he has consistently been breathing over the machine.  They take a daily chest x-ray and have found a spot of pneumonia in the lower lobe of one of his lungs, but do not seem overly concerned.  They are running him an antibiotic to clear that up.